Here's a comparison fur you to ponder: I'd bet that many who posted on here against PVC made boats would shit-a-brick when they discovered that they're own car actually has a plastic radiator instead of the old fashioned metal/aluminum style of days old... and they are doing just fine cooling the car at a cheaper cost to the manufacturer and then consumer. They are pretty tough if you use them as intended. Just a slight comparison.

I've owned several types of fabric on my boats over the years. Each has pro's and con's. My PVC RMR is serving me well for now, and I'm hoping to get 10 years out of it with proper care. I'm with Shap who always tends to offer some sanity to a MB thread: get whatever gets you on the water without breaking the bank.

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Finding out your PVC boat / radiator has a finite life span is somewhat analogous to finding out your baby has birth defects; You love them anyway. Since half the folks in this forum are somewhat tied to the business, this is merely a reality check on the propaganda stream.

To the gentleman that bought a car with pvc radiator....There is one born every minute.

The margins on inflatables are huge. The margins on inflatables are huge. The margins on inflatables are huge……Unless you have to manufacture them in the USA. Then you pay taxes, livable wages, more taxes, rent, health care and on and on. Keeping this boat industry here in the USA is crucial. The folks making boats in the USA know this and go to extreme efforts to make quality product.

PVC is a means to entice the buyer to purchase a cheap boat. A cheap boat is exactly that. PVC is a chlorinated hydrocarbon. Most PVC is photo reactive and herein lies the problem. We live in a world where atmospheric radiation bombards the earth; such radiation striking said pvc and degrading the molecule. PVC (poly vinyl chloride) is generally comprised of Carbon, Hydrogen, and Chlorine. That disassociated Chlorine is a problem. That Chlorine is sitting out there at the end of the molecule just waiting for an energy particle to knock it off.

Once freed from the bonds of the PVC molecule, Chlorine is out there looking for something to attach itself to. Along wanders an Ozone (O3 ) and a new marriage is made. There is enough PVC (and other disassociated Chlorines) currently in our environment to potentially destroy life on the planet as we know it. All this cause you wanted a cheap boat, or in the previous gentleman’s argument…. radiator. I could also throw disinfected drinking water under the bus as well. That may deter from my argument.

"Since half the folks in this forum are somewhat tied to the business, this is merely a reality check on the propaganda stream."

It's starting to sound a bit like some of the whitewater industry conspiracy rants over on PNWrafters in here.

I'm not a chemist, nor do I have ties to boating equipment manufacturing/sales industry, but I have a hard time considering hypalon, or urethane, or Lexatron, or PVC environmentally friendly. For that matter, I consider boating in general to be a pretty high impact sport, environmentally speaking: we drive big trucks or busses, with trailers, long distances burning fossil fuels. When we get to the put-in we launch craft that have been constructed with petroleum products and plenty of other harsh chemicals. Then consider all the individually wrapped food items (fill up those landfills) that many of us bring, the food waste (methane anyone?), the neoprene wetsuits and nylon drysuits we wear (more oil), the aluminum frames and boxes (Al=mining+smelting (The process produces a quantity of fluoride waste: perfluorocarbons (long lasting greenhouse gas) and hydrogen fluoride as gases (toxic to plants), and sodium and aluminium fluorides and unused cryolite as particulates. Not to mention the high energy requirements of smelting aluminum (more fossil fuels).) Then on the river we denude beaches of firewood/driftwood, trample vegetation to make space for kitchens, tents, etc, disturb wildlife (chinook redds, eg), and litter the land and river (unintentionally, hopefully).

Point isn't that we shouldn't go rafting, just that we should be mindful of and realistic about the impacts our activities have, and not lie to ourselves about how friendly boating is, just because there aren't motors running. Go boating if you like to, use the boat you can afford, and do what you can to reduce your activities' impact.

Went over to check out the PNW Parallel Rant Page. Assuming this is the gentleman that you all have been ganging up on. Years ago, there were two or three other blogs at the Yahoo Groups page, PNW and UtahRafters for some. Seen to be gone now.

Ok, I get it now. Those of us not willing or not able to drop upwards of $4,000 on the rubber alone should pay $1,500 - $2,000 to recycle your 20 year old raft when you are ready to walk away from that old raft with patches or upgrade. So you can feel better knowing you didn't throw away your garbage raft. Instead you sold it to someone else to throw away in a couple years. I would have to buy a 20 year old patched up hypalon to beat the price of my new PVC Outlaw. No thanks. Maybe if people were reasonably pricing those old and at the end of their lifespan boats. I might have went that route. Since I know you like to use cars as examples Gary your still pretty much saying it would be better to pay more for 20 year old Mercedes that has been in an accident than a brand new Ford Focus with a manufacturer warranty. I'm still not buying it.

With respect to the price of a used boat. The prices are what the buyer and seller are willing to negotiate. Much of that price is base on hype from blogs such as this. I suggest a straight line depreciation such that the value of a boat is proportional to the years in service divided by the life of the boat times the original purchase price, factored by any damage and or its ability to hold air for a 24 hour period. Setting Jack aside, I propose the use of 7 years at the outside limit for PVC and 15 years for the outside limit for neoprene and same for the heavyweight TPUs. Deduct 3 years for any boat manufactured in China and add 3 years for any boat made in the USA.